A former profession US diplomat was sentenced to fifteen years in federal jail after admitting he labored for many years as a undercover agent for communist Cuba, a plea settlement that leaves many unanswered questions on a betrayal that surprised the US international service.
Manuel Rocha, 73, can even pay a $US500,000 ($770,000) effective and cooperate with authorities after pleading responsible to conspiring to behave as an agent of a international authorities.
In trade, prosecutors dismissed greater than a dozen different counts, together with wire fraud and making false statements.
“Your actions were a direct attack to our democracy and the safety of our citizens,” US District Court Judge Beth Bloom advised Rocha.
Rocha, wearing a beige jail uniform, requested his family and friends for forgiveness. “I take full responsibility and accept the penalty,” he said.
The sentencing capped an exceptionally swift criminal case and averted a trial that would have shed new light on what, exactly, Rocha did to help Cuba even as he worked for two decades for the US State Department.
Prosecutors said those details remain classified and would not even tell Bloom when the government determined Rocha was spying for Cuba.
Federal authorities have been conducting a confidential damage assessment that could take years to complete.
The State Department said Friday (local time) it would continue working with the intelligence community “to fully assess the foreign policy and national security implications of these charges.”
Rocha’s sentence came less than six months after his shocking arrest at his Miami home on allegations he engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981, the year he joined the US foreign service.
The case underscored the sophistication of Cuba’s intelligence services, which have managed other damaging penetrations into high levels of US government.
Rocha’s double-crossing went undetected for years, prosecutors said, as the Ivy League-educated diplomat secretly met with Cuban operatives and provided false information to US officials about his contacts.
But a recent Associated Press investigation found red flags overlooked along the way, including a warning that one longtime CIA operative received nearly two decades ago that Rocha was working as a double agent.
Separate intelligence revealed the CIA had been aware as early as 1987 that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had a “super mole” burrowed deep inside the US government, and some officials suspected it could have been Rocha, the AP reported.
Rocha’s prestigious career included stints as ambassador to Bolivia and top posts in Argentina, Mexico, the White House and the US Interests Section in Havana.
In 1973, the year he graduated from Yale, Rocha travelled to Chile, where prosecutors say he became a “great friend” of Cuba’s intelligence agency, the General Directorate of Intelligence, or DGI.
Rocha’s post-government career included time as a special adviser to the commander of the US Southern Command and, more recently, as a tough-talking Donald Trump supporter and Cuba hardliner, a persona that friends and prosecutors said Rocha adopted to hide his true allegiances.
Among the unanswered questions is what prompted the FBI to open its investigation into Rocha so many years after he retired from the foreign service.
Rocha incriminated himself in a series of secretly recorded conversations with an undercover agent posing as a Cuban intelligence operative.
The agent initially reached out to Rocha on WhatsApp, calling himself “Miguel” and saying he had a message “from your friends in Havana.”
Rocha praised Castro as “Comandante” in the conversations, branded the US the “enemy” and boasted about his service for greater than 40 years as a Cuban mole within the coronary heart of US international coverage circles, prosecutors mentioned in court docket data.
“What we have done … it’s enormous … more than a Grand Slam,” Rocha was quoted as saying.
Even earlier than Friday’s sentencing, the plea settlement drew criticism in Miami’s Cuban exile group, with some authorized observers worrying Rocha could be handled too leniently.
“Any sentence that allows him to see the light of day again would not be justice,” mentioned Carlos Trujillo, a Miami legal professional who served as US Ambassador to the Organization of American States through the Trump administration.
“He’s a spy for a foreign adversary who put American lives at risk.”
“As a Cuban I cannot forgive him,” added Isel Rodriguez, a 55-year-old Cuban-American lady who stood outdoors the federal courthouse Friday with a bunch of demonstrators waving American flags.
“I feel completely betrayed.”
Source: www.9news.com.au
